November 14, 2014

Mayor Bill de Blasio

City Hall
New York, NY 10007
Chancellor Carmen Faria
New York City Department of Education
Tweed Courthouse
52 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
Dear Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Faria:
The recently released report of the School Space Working Group contains many important
recommendations; most critical perhaps are those emphasizing ensuring adequate space in all
schools to provide students with disabilities all of the resources, services, and supports to which
they are entitled. The groups recommendations do not, the report acknowledges, address other
critical issues of the impact of some co-locations on students basic educational rights, issues that
disparately affect students with extra educational needs and challenges.
For this reason, we write today to urge you to place a moratorium on proposing any new colocations until the student rights violations in existing co-located schools have been substantially
remedied. Many students in New York City are currently constrained by space limitations from
receiving the resources necessary for a sound basic education, including smaller classes, the full
complement of cluster, specialty, and resource rooms necessary for the full Regents-required
curriculum and required academic intervention services, and dedicated spaces for English language
learners and students with disabilities to receive their mandated services. Students must also have
access to the cafeteria, the library, and the gymnasium at appropriate times and for at least the
state-mandated minimum periods.
This moratorium is not intended to interfere with placing District 75 programs in schools as needed
in order to improve inclusion opportunities for students with disabilities and ensure that their
needs are addressed. We also support the planned co-location of a D75 school in a newly
constructed building. However, even such co-locations must in the future be implemented with
true community engagement and a comprehensive plan for ensuring that D75 and other students
receive at least the full complement of basic educational resources to which they are entitled.
Through site visits and interviews with dozens of staff in a sample of high-need schools, the
Campaign for Educational Equity (CEE) has documented how, in some schools, co-locations
exacerbated resource constraints and deprived students of critical programs and services, and that
some principals have had to spend 20-80% of their professional time negotiating over access to
space and addressing building-wide safety matters, depriving their educators and students of
valuable instructional leadership and support.1 The CEE study further revealed how some co1

www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/31783_Co-location_and_SBE_6.3.pdf

locations have undermined NYC students right to a sound basic education by subjecting students to
inadequate facilities, oversized classes, inadequate course offerings, and insufficient support that in
many cases violate state statutory, regulatory, and constitutional requirements.
Other reports from Class Size Matters and the City Comptroller have delineated the worsening
overcrowding crisis in our schools.2 Co-locations, whether in the case of district public schools or
charter schools, have exacerbated overcrowding by subtracting classrooms in the process of
replicating administrative and specialty rooms and restricting access to shared spaces. In addition,
the current building-utilization formula is widely recognized as underestimating the actual level of
overcrowding in our schools by not properly accounting for the need for class sizes consistent with
constitutional parameters and other factors necessary for an adequate opportunity to learn.
As immediate next steps during the moratorium, the New York City Department of Education
should:

Assess the prevalence and extent of the violations of students rights in schools in which colocation is currently taking place or in which new co-locations are being considered.

Broadly disseminate information about the resources, services, and supports to which all
students in all schools are entitled under state statute, regulations and constitutional law.
(Parents, students, educators, policymakers, and the community at large must understand that
all sound basic education requirements apply, whatever the school size or configuration.)

Review and revise the Instructional footprint to ensure sufficient classrooms, gymnasiums,
laboratories, libraries, and other instructional spaces, cafeterias, offices, and storage for all
schools to meet all sound-basic-education requirements, including appropriate class sizes and
suitable curricula.

Amend the educational impact statement (EIS) to include a review of the impact of any
proposed co-location on students sound-basic-education rights.

Quantify the number of personnel, including administrators and safety personnel that must be
added in order to administer building issues resulting from co-location.

Finally, the current rights-related problems with co-locations extend beyond charter schools and
can be found in buildings housing only co-located district schools. However, to the extent that the
procedures and reforms that we recommend may obligate the city, in accordance with recently
enacted state statutes regarding siting for charter schools, to make additional rental payments for
charter operators who will need to find space in private facilities, the city should pay those
amounts, rather than deprive district-school or charter-school students of their constitutional right
to an adequate opportunity to learn. We also believe that the city should assiduously urge our
legislators to amend the law to require the state to cover the full cost of charter-school rentals, as it
was the state that imposed this financial burden on the city.
2

www.classsizematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/SPACE-CRUNCH-Report-Final-OL.pdf;
http://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/7E13_123A.pdf

Yours sincerely,
Deborah Alexander, member, Community Education Council District 30
Teresa Arboleda, President, Citywide Council on English Language Learners*
Miriam Aristy-Farer, President, Community Education Council District 6
Isaac Carmignani, Co-President, Community Education Council District 30*
Gloria Corsino, President, Citywide Council for District 75*
Dr. Vera Daniels, President, Community Education Council District 28*
Lisa Donlan, President, Community Education Council District 1
Shenell Evans, Secretary, Community Education Council District 6
Joseph A. Fiordaliso, President, Community Education Council District 3*
Fe Florimon, member, Community Education Council 6, MBP Appointee
Tory Frye, member, Community Education Council District 6
Angela Garces, member, Community Education Council District 6
David Goldsmith, President, Community Education Council District 13
Jeffrey Guyton, Co-President, Community Education Council District 30*
Noah E. Gotbaum, Vice President, Community Education Council District 3
Leonie Haimson, Executive Director, Class Size Matters
Alicia Hyndman, Treasurer, Community Education Council District 29
Nicole Job, President, Community Education Council District 17
Ann Kittredge, member, Community Education Council District, District 28
Victoria Medelius, member, Community Education Council District 30
LaTonia McMillan, member, Community Education Council District 31
Lakeisha Moffatt, member, Community Education Council District 17
Sarah Morgridge, member, Blue Book Working Group*
Sonni Mun, member, Community Education Council District 2
Valarie Lamour, member, Community Education Council District 30
Michael Rebell, Executive Director, Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia
University
Naila Rosario, President, Community Education Council District 15
Tamara Rowe, member, Community Education Council District 2
Amy Shire, member, Community Education Council District 13
Arthur Schwartz, President, Advocates for Justice
Shino Tanikawa, President, Community Education Council District 2*
Rashidah White, President, Community Education Council District 5
Tesa Wilson, President, Community Education Council District 14
*organizational affiliation for identification purposes only

cc:

New York City Council Education Committee Chair Daniel Dromm

New York State Assembly Education Committee Chair Cathy Nolan
New York State Senate Education Committee Chair John Flanagan